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Writer Bio

Storytelling is a talent passed down through the generations in my family. It is a way of life in that the more you live, the better the story; the deeper the experience, the broader the plain to connect with readers. Just like life is about people so writing is about people - about their love, their loss, their triumphs, their failures, and their x ever after. I write to understand myself and make sense of life. I share my work in order to find others who can relate to my characters, or their lives, or the moral of the story.

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Sunday, July 17, 2011

Spo·rad·ic: spəˈradik - Occurring at irregular intervals or only in a few places; scattered or isolated.

Listening to: Starstrukk - 30H!3 ft Katy Perry

Watching: The Wiggles

Writing: Blueberry Valley

Greetings!
It is I, the Queen of Sporadic, come to give your minds whiplash and infuriate/confuse the sense out of you.

I think I've set the record for using the term 'updates will be sporadic' on FFN. You can't blame me for it, though. I'm a mother of two kiddies under the age of 5. I might go through patches where I'm updating four brand-spanking new chapters in immediate sequence in the span of a day, but readers need to keep in mind that these 'rolls' are dependent on several factors, e.g. I have the inspiration, I have sugarloaded coffee/energy drinks handy, my computer isn't stuffing up, my kids are quite content sharing me with my fictional world for that length of time, etc. It's not a daily thing. A daily thing would be my kids hammering down my bedroom door at 6:30 am every morning demanding either my presence or wheetbix.

Went a bit off the track there; the word sporadic just reminded me of the good ol' days when I used to write fanfiction as a means of procrastination before getting to work on my novels. Ah. The good ol' days.

Anyway, this blogpost is going to be very sporadic. I've got a lot of things going through my head at Speedy Gonzales speed.

I've finally found a story to compare my current WIP to: The Time Travellers Wife.

Blueberry Valley, as I've temporarily titled my novel while it's still in early stages, is aimed at the YA audience. It's largely a romance, revolving around a couple's relationship that is put through, you could say, hell. There are secrets that surface, paranoia abound, a love-triangle of sorts, and it just comes down to the odds being stacked against the couple living 'happily ever after' (I've never been big on those fairy-tale endings; you've read one, you've read them all), and how they rise up above it.

There are also heavy paranormal/horror themes, such as the main male characters possessing paranormal powers (think I am Number 4 style) because they're *spoiler* and thus not human. I'm also in the process of writing separate novels describing the male characters (alternately) from their POV, where they're coming from, where they've been, basically their own little life stories that can be stand-alone books, or tie in as a series (with the added bonus that you can read them in any order you like without missing a beat). Not an easy feast to accomplish, but considering I've been writing in this universe for nearly eleven years, it's as easy as pie. But I'm focussing solely on this novel, with the main female protagonist's POV, at the moment so that I can actually get one of these manuscripts completed before the end of the year. And yes, I will be submitting it for publishing. I can't not submit it to an agent.

So, with all that said, I am a tad bit confused as to which genre this novel will fall under. I've always labelled it a paranormal romance, but since time travel is also a current theme in the novel, it adds that bit of sci-fi/fantasy to it. So far it's been suggested to me that it could be classed a crossover romance, but I'll await further consensus from other writers. Albeit I'm starting to wonder whether I've got the definition of time travelling right or not, now.

Anyway. Before my mind explodes trying to figure it out.
We might go watch the last Harry Potter this morning. Heavy emphasis on the might. Hubby is still fast asleep and I think the next show is in another hour - and I'm still in my PJs. We're not HP fans, but it was one of the very first movies we went to watch since we started dating eleven years ago. Since then we've watched every new HP movie that has come out, so it's almost like our personal little tradition in our relationship. We like HP for sentimental reasons, and not much else (except cracking the odd joke about Ron - kiwi humour, y'know).

Oh, and three days ago I finally got to packing my hospital bag. Two nights ago, after some vigorous walking through the CBD earlier the day, I thought bubs was going to make his entrance into the world while I was in bed. It was just past midnight and it was the pain that woke me up. Not a contraction but his head had sunk even deeper down and he was shifting around. I can say that's the first time in any of my pregnancies that I experienced actual pain. So I freaked out. In a very quiet but rushed way - I chucked the last odds and ends into my hospital bag (I restrained myself from carrying the bag downstairs and putting it by the door), and found my hubby still awake in the lounge. He organised a movie for me, because I wasn't going to be able to sleep after that scare, and eventually I was calm and confident enough to go to sleep.

Although I do have this gut instinct that bubs is going to come earlier than predicted.
It's not wishful thinking either; I have to go for a two hour glucose blood test, another midwife checkup, my last driving lesson, a chat with the doctors at the hospital; I have a property inspection scheduled, and my practical driving test booked, and another trip to the hospital for bloods for the CS to make before bubs is scheduled to arrive. That's a lot to do in two weeks, and that's excluding all the fun activities I have planned for the kids for the school holiday! All of which (aside from the medical stuff, obviously) I really look forward to doing. So this idea I have that bubs is going to come early is not a case of me being at that stage of the pregnancy where I WANT him to come and put this long difficult pregnancy behind me. Just the opposite! I have so much I'm striving to accomplish before he arrives, that I think it would be very typical indeed if he threw a spanner in the works by making an earlier arrival.